Weekend Report – October 11th
The nights are drawing in, the temperatures are dropping and there are already swathes of crimson leaves on the ground. So, it must be time for cross country and so it is! It all began early on Saturday afternoon at the Billy Neill Playing Fields on the Comber Road for the Ballydrain Harriers’ Comber Cup, this year also incorporating the inaugural John McKeag Cup for the best women’s team. However, there was Orangegrove participation elsewhere. Michael O’Donoghue was having none of the local stuff this weekend. He was in Chicago for the marathon and on Sunday some of our members were down in Armagh for the Armagh 10 mile road race. Never a dull moment!
Traditionally the Comber Cup kicks off the cross country season. The races are run by Ballydrain Harriers at the magnificent Billy Neill football grounds on the Comber Road.
We wish Michael O’Donoghue well this weekend in the United States. Michael is in Illinois on the banks of Lake Michigan taking part in one of the great marathons of the world, the Bank of America Chicago Marathon. Michael will be one of many thousands of participants on a course which starts and finishes in the city’s Grant Park. The course passes through 29 local neighbourhoods and the runners, from every state in America and from no fewer than 100 different countries, will be cheered on by almost two million spectators on the ground! The route is very, very flat. It is one on which to set a personal best and one on which four world records have been set. Best of luck Michael! We are with you all the way and, as always, we admire your endeavour.
And the news is coming in more quickly from Chicago than it is from Armagh. I am glad to report that MOD is alive and well and currently basking in the glory of a time of 3.59.14 in the Bank of America Chicago Marathon. Very well done indeed! I am sure that further details will emerge in due course! Michael is bound to download his entire race statistics in the next few days, so you might need to consider increasing the random-access memory of your device in preparation.
Sunday also brought the Adidas Armagh 10 mile road race, generally regarded as a preliminary warm up run for the Dublin City Marathon at the end of the month. The race starts and finishes at the iconic Navan Centre, a royal site of pre-Christian Gaelic Ireland, capital of the Ulaidh and home of the famous Red Branch Knights. I am not certain how many of the runners were aware of that or cared less, but amongst them were Orangegrove’s Eoin Woodman and Zdzislaw Malkinski.
Results from Armagh would appear to be taking an extraordinarily long time to appear for some reason. Eoin has posted that his Garmin showed 1.50.23 for his race, a significant 10 mile personal best for the senior Woodman, despite the numerous undulations. Well done Eoin!
| Zdzislaw Malkinski | 1.17.44 | 126th/311 |
| Eoin Woodman | 1.50.21 | 303rd/311 |
Well done gentlemen!
Saturday evening brought a significant social event in the OAC calendar. Dozens of club members gathered at the CIYMS complex for a general knowledge quiz in support of the AWARE (Aware Defeat Depression) charity.
Grateful thanks to all those who attended, and particular thanks to Sharon McFarland who took the lead in organising what was a magnificent and very enjoyable social occasion which raised over £600 for the charity. The winning team was ‘Chairman Miaow’ consisting of Thomas and Liz Leitch together with Louise Browne and Fintan Hurl.
Parkrun at Victoria Park today attracted 223 runners on what was a perfect morning for a 5k run. As always, we were grateful for the volunteers on the track running the event and those manning the kitchen to provide the vital afters. Due to construction work in the park which has disrupted the inner trail, this morning’s run was over three outer laps. There were a number of Orangegrove personal bests.
Rodney Corrigan was at it again, circulating in 20.04. Rodney is getting seriously fast these days! Stephen Craig was flying too on 26.03 and Nicola Downey also set another personal best of 27.03 for this venue. Karen Russell too, a lovely lady with great potential, also ran a personal best of 27.39. Well done Deborah Killen on getting around in a personal best of 36.48. Paul Tyro was the leading Orangegrover on the day in 5th place in 17.50 with Thomas Leitch in 11th place in 18.55. Well done Pauline Bayliss on being first lady in 21.10, only a second off her personal best of 21.09 for the Victoria park course.
Mark Williamson, a veritable parkrun tourist, was in West Belfast today for the inaugural, seriously hilly, Colin Glen parkrun. Mark had a great run and finished in 11th place out of 98 in 21.33.
Now, the volunteering bit. If you run parkrun regularly you should volunteer now and again. It is easy and you will meet nice people who will be appreciative of your efforts. To sign up email Gerry on belfastvictoriahelpers@parkrun.com. You should do it now! Don’t leave it until tomorrow or you will forget!
